Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights and Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion Joint Submission to the Human Rights Council at the 29th Session of the Universal Periodic Review The Bahamas Introduction 1. The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights and the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion make this joint submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in relation to gender discrimination in the nationality law of The Bahamas and related statelessness and human rights challenges. 2. The Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights mobilises international action for the removal of gender discriminatory provisions from all nationality laws through its coalition of national and international organisations and activists.1 3. The Institute2 is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting an integrated, human rights based response to the injustice of statelessness and exclusion. Established in August 2014, it is the first and only global centre committed to promoting the human rights of stateless persons and ending statelessness. Over the past two years, the Institute has made over 15 country specific UPR submissions on the human rights of stateless persons, and also compiled summaries of the key human rights challenges related to statelessness in all countries under the 23rd to the 28th UPR Sessions.3 4. This submission focuses on: I. II. III. The right of married women to confer nationality on children and spouses, without discrimination on the basis of sex; The right of unmarried men to confer nationality on children, without discrimination on the basis of sex; Human rights violations resulting from statelessness and gender discrimination in the nationality law of The Bahamas. 5. This Submission draws on experience with research, advocacy, and awareness raising of the co-submitting organisations and their partners, both internationally and in the Bahamas. 1 For more information see www.equalnationalityrights.org For more information see http://institutesi.org/ 3 For more on the Institute’s UPR advocacy, see http://www.institutesi.org/ourwork/humanrights.php. 2